SwissCheese:
That's all fine then, because the pilots got it wrong, so let's forget about the AD on this issue and any manufacturer related issues...
As an airline pilot, I would agree with you on not taking the easy road and blaming the pilot all the time. But you can't ignore the CVR and FDR data. At no point do the pilots discuss any difficulty with flight controls. They were clearly lost and overwhelmed by the situation they found themselves in. Their communications sound more like the Colgan Air Q400 crash - pure confusion of the situation they were in.
Take a look at the UPS accident report. Their flight controls began failing almost immediately due to the raging fire in the main-deck. Right away, you see a discussion between the CA and FO about the apparent lack of controls (caused by the slacking of the control cables due to the heat).
No-one here denies that both Airbus and Boeing have their issues and have had some accidents which bring up the questions of mechanical failures. But this doesn't seem like one of those.